Home Sales Volume Edges Up, Prices Hit Five Year Low Again

March 5, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Weekly existing home sales volume and home prices remained at about the same levels as last week with sales edging upward while prices fell slightly, setting a new low in the current five year housing market cycle according to the National Home Sales Snapshot released by DataQuick.

There were 144,737 properties sold over the previous thirty day rolling period ending March 1st, up 0.4 percent from the previous week’s total of 144,228 properties sold and 0.5 percent lower than the 145,440 properties sold four weeks ago.

Sales volume is down 24.2 percent from the current year’s cycle peak of 190,934 sales during the 30-day rolling period prior to September 1st.

Last week’s home sales volume was 2.1 percent higher than the 141,785 homes sold during the same period a year ago and was 9.7 percent higher than during the same period three years ago when 131,945 homes were sold.

The median price of a home sold over the same thirty day rolling period ending March 1st fell $100 from the previous week to $169,900 and is down 2.9 percent from a month ago. Last week’s median home price beat the current five-year cycle low of $170,000 posted the previous week.

Home prices were also 1.5 percent lower than the same period a year ago when the median price of a home was $172,500 and were 6.1 percent lower than the same period three years ago when the median price was $181,000.

Over the last five years, median home prices nationwide have ranged from a high of $275,000 to the new low of $169,900 posted last week.

Sales volume for a thirty day period within the last five years has ranged from a high of 339,669 properties sold to a low of 124,051.

The National Home Sales Snapshot includes 98 out of the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas covering 66.25 percent of U.S. home sales.